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Ex-bank worker on 31 charges

Fired bank employee, Nikisha Winter-Roach, appeared before a Port-of-Spain Magistrate on Friday on 31 counts of fraud.

The charges against Winter-Roach, 37, of Blue Basin Gardens, Diego Martin, included 19 counts of larceny servant, six counts of forgery and six counts of uttering forged documents in connection with the theft of $253,500 between May 2011 and June 2017.

She was granted $300,000 bail.

The charges stemmed from a report made by Republic Bank’s Glencoe branch bank to the Fraud Squad in 2017 and an investigation into the alleged theft of monies from the accounts of several customers.

Winter-Roach was dismissed from the bank last year, following the launch of the investigations.

Winter-Roach was reported missing on July 26 last year. She was found five days later tied up and in a disoriented state by a neighbour close to her home at Edinburgh 500, Chaguanas.

As the truth of our economic predicament sets in, readers may find it useful to look back at previous budgets since 2001.

One will easily note that in a nine-year period up to 2010, national budgets increased by over 300%, and while this happened, oil and gas production declined, there were drastic declines in drilling, negligible diversification, foreign investment plunged, and the State was plagued by over-budget mega projects.

In the years 2011 to 2015, national budgets increased by approximately 26% in spite of non-boom oil and gas prices, with increases in oil and gas exploration and new investments, as well as completed and delivered large-scale projects.